From Bernard.Lang@inria.fr  Fri Jan 26 14:01:57 2001
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:01:57 +0100
From: Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr
Subject: [Patents] A shareholders viewpoint



Today I decided to be nice.

I know Greg is very eager to generalize any argument about software
patent, so as to show that patents are generally noxious.

  I am personally less concerned with other patents, but it is
certainly an interesting, possibly useful endeavor, and I wish to
provide some additional data:

http://info.sm.umist.ac.uk/esrcip/background.htm

"Overall, we conclude that the programme has been useful in brining
together researchers with expertise in economics, business management,
etc in a field previously dominated by lawyers. In other words, it has
opened up the field to multidisciplinary studies."

"The research programme has established that formal IP regimes are
applicable only to a small proportion of business activity, such as
large manufacturing companies."

... and since innovation in software is mainly in SMEs ...

There is much more where this comes from

Bernard

On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 12:34:22PM -0000, Nick F. wrote:
> Luuk,
>        I agree with you totally that it is somewhat unjust that all the
> patenting going on is destroying peoples businesses just because 
> someone else got a monopoly on an idea - at least from a developers
> viewpoint.
> 
>     (I write software too, so I get quite miffed when I have to
> ditch it for legal reasons..)
> 
>     The thing is, there are a number of businesses which rely
> on patents to provide some sort of stability within industries.
> I notice that a lot of the software companies that are filing 
> patents seem to be listed on the stock exchange. This is because
> shareholders (banks, insurance firms, pension funds and other
> financial institutions) tend to invest in companies that have a 
> strong, preferably long term position within an industry so
> that the share price has a better chance to increase in value.
> If a business has a monopoly, it is less likely to go out
> of business in the near future than one that does not.
> 
> What this means is that to attract investment, companies
> often protect their businesses with patents. As Greg
> will probably remind us later - shareholders see software
> as just another industry to invest in.
> 
> Peter Lynch, one of the top US fund managers wrote the
> following in "One Up On Wall Street" :
> 
> "There's also hidden value in owning a drug that nobody
> else can make for seventeen years, and if the owner can
> improve the drug slightly, then he gets to keep the patent for
> another seventeen years."
> 
> (Im not sure that is entirely correct but you get the idea).
> 
> So you see, from a shareholders perspective, they don't
> actually have to care about the state of an industry, or
> who loses, just as long as their share price keeps going up...
> 
> Just my 2 cents.
> 
> Regards.
> 
> Nick 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Patents maillist  -  Patents@liberte.aful.org
> http://liberte.aful.org/mailman/listinfo/patents

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